WEIGHTY SUBJECT : Chargers’ Charles Not Interested in Heavy Discussion
Mike Charles likes it here. People don’t stare at him. Famous football coaches don’t ridicule him.
He can do what he loves best--go alone to a mid-afternoon horror movie and sit in the back row. Amid the violent deaths of baby sitters and high school principals, nobody will poke him and say, “Just how big are you?”
“I hate ignorant people who tell me I’m the biggest man they have ever seen in their life,” said Charles. “I hate people who tell me I’m so big, I should be a football player.”
Charles is a football player, the Charger nose tackle, stands 6-feet 4-inches tall and, well, what did those scales say again?
“I’m a gentle man. I like to think of myself as kind of intelligent, kind of witty,” said Charles. “But don’t ask me about my damn weight.”
Miami Dolphin Coach Don Shula did. Once a week. For four years. He would weigh Charles publicly every Thursday and fine him $25 for every pound over his Dolphin-designated bulk.
When the results didn’t please the coach, Shula hired a dietician to follow Charles around training camp and carry his food tray.
“She was nice,” recalled Charles. “I’m sorry, I can’t be eating with no scale in my hand.”
After Charles collapsed in practice last summer, Shula fired him. Tampa Bay picked him up. For two weeks.
“All they looked at was the weight,” said Charles. “They never really looked at me.”
The Buccaneers fired him.
On Aug. 27, when the Chargers called him, he decided he couldn’t bear to hear about it anymore. He told them no.
“I wasn’t going out to San Diego and let somebody else make a spectacle of me,” Charles said. “I wasn’t going somewhere else where all they say is, ‘You’re a fat, sorry-butt player.’ ”
The Chargers said, what weight?
“They told me they just wanted me to play,” he said. “They said they didn’t care what I looked like. It was all I wanted to hear.”
Eight victories later, Charles is finally where he feels wanted. He is eighth on the team with 26 tackles. Despite earlier inconsistent performances, against the Raiders Sunday there were few better. He was third on the team with four tackles, plus one pass defensed.
“As long as we can find some way to weigh him, we will not worry about him,” said defensive coordinator Ron Lynn. “He has obviously added to the bulk along the front (of the defensive line). Shoot, he’d add to the bulk of the Queen Mary.”
And how much bulk might that be?
“I hate getting aggravated, and there’s only one things that aggravate me,” said Charles. “I will not discuss my weight.”
Oh, OK.
It’s 320 pounds.
It’s 35 more than Don Shula allowed in Miami.
But that’s why Mike Charles likes it here. The Chargers are 8-1, and who’s counting?
It is 3 p.m. He is leaving work, wearing a black suede sweat suit and black dress shoes with no socks. On his huge head is a tiny red leather beanie.
“You like this hat?” Mike Charles asks. “Eddie Murphy wears this hat.”
His dress is young punk. His soft voice is of a young boy.
Of all the violence in his world, the kind Mike Charles likes best is found in the movies.
“That’s where I’m heading today, to see that movie about ‘The Running Man,’ ” said Charles, 25, who was the NFL’s youngest player when he began his 1983 rookie season at age 20. “I like violent movies. Anything with shooting, killing, blood, gorings, anything horrible.
“I’ve seen every one of those ‘Halloween’ things. I’ve seen every ‘Friday the 13th’ they’ve ever made.”
To describe his football ability in familiar terms: He messes up offenses’ itineraries if he were a deranged hotel clerk. He can fight through two blockers like a handyman with a chainsaw.
“He is such an object in the middle, he’s got that mass you need in mass versus mass,” said backup nose tackle Chuck Ehin.
Said defensive line coach Gunther Cunningham: “When they announce tackles, all you ever hear is Chip Banks or Billy Ray Smith. But like in the Raiders game, I saw Charles throw off a couple of blockers and get outside and trip up Marc Wilson enough so that one of those guys could get him. He does a lot of things you do not see.”
Charles, who makes no habit of underselling himself, agrees.
“Mostly, I’m playing as well as I want to play,” he said. “Everything is falling into place for me here. Everything fits.”
That’s a first.
He grew up in inner-city Newark, N.J., yet attended something called the Science School, for academically advanced students.
“I wasn’t a gang leader, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he said.
He received more than 250 football scholarship offers, but chose the academics of Syracuse.
“I wasn’t going to any football factory,” said Charles, the holder of a speech communications degree. “Even now, (with) Syracuse winning, everybody is dogging them. It’s a place to learn.”
Then he arrived in Miami as a second-round draft pick of the defense-weak Dolphins. He weighed more than 300 pounds. Shula said his quick defensive scheme couldn’t stand for it.
That made Charles’ ears hurt.
“They wanted me small, but they wanted me to go up against 300-pound offensive linemen and 250-pound running backs,” said Charles. “I couldn’t handle it. No 250-pound back is ever going to run me over.
“I always had weight on my mind. My mom would come down and give me my first good home-cooked meal in six weeks and I would wake up the next morning worrying about it. I would have to figure out a way to dodge the coaches and sneak out of the locker room. That was terrible.”
In the middle of a work week, Charles would go a day without eating, and still not make his weight.
“It was making me delirious,” he said.
Shula became more incensed and finally, said Charles, just stopped talking to him.
“He would see me in the hallway and say nothing,” said Charles. “Other coaches would say nothing. They lost all faith in me.”
Things worsened when Charles would not attend off-season workout sessions, even though he felt his reasoning was simple enough:
“Personally, I can’t stand to be around the same football players all year,” he explained. “Six months is already too much. A man has to devote time to his family, and to the money that he’s made.
“I use my off-seasons for travel, to go everywhere I can go, see everything I can see.”
This follows Charles’ equally simple philosophy of life: “Live while you can, because you never know when you are going to die. Driving around this town in the rain the other day, I almost died twice.”
Shula’s patience finally wore out midway through Charles’ tenure in Miami, when, after sacking New York Jet quarterback Richard Todd, Charles stuck out his arms and did what he called “The Levitation Dance.”
Todd threw the ball in Charles’ face and afterward, Shula said, “If I was Richard Todd, I would have done the same thing.”
“Shula just had to show his authority, embarrass me,” said Charles. “Shoot, at that time, everybody in the league was doing levitation dances. I didn’t just make that up.”
So it wasn’t being cut from Miami last summer that hurt Charles.
It was being cut two weeks later from Tampa.
“I get cut and think, damn, if I can’t make this Tampa crew, what’s up for me?” he recalled. “Thank goodness for the Chargers.”
Most of the time here, the feeling has been mutual.
“We told Mike we don’t care about weight, we care about productivity,” said Coach Al Saunders. “If the weight inhibits you, lose it or you’re gone. So far, it’s been no problem.
“Our defensive style is different than Miami or Tampa’s. And we don’t ask players to do what they can’t do.”
Thanks a ton, says Charles.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to eat myself out of this game,” he said. “It’s too much fun.”
Charger Notes
Quarterback Dan Fouts, nursing a pulled right calf muscle, did not practice again Thursday. He was moving around the locker room much better than earlier in the week--his limp wasn’t nearly so noticeable--and Coach Al Saunders said he hopes Fouts can practice today. “We hope to do something, and if he can practice then or Saturday, fine,” said Saunders. “If not, we worry.” Saunders said the Chargers would not stretch the suspense of Fouts’ readiness until game day: “Both he and Mark (Herrmann) need to know before then about their roles.” . . . Of almost equal concern, receivers Wes Chandler (Achilles’ tendon) and Lionel James (ankle), running back Curtis Adams (ankle) and tackle Jim Lachey (knee) did not practice Thursday. “If they do not practice (today), it will be difficult for any of them to play on Sunday,” said Saunders. One possible replacement, receiver Al Williams, pulled a hamstring Thursday and will miss any chance of activation Sunday. . . . One Charger bright note: Tackle Gary Kowalski (ankle) felt good enough to practice a bit, and should play Sunday. . . . Judging by practice time, there’s a good chance linebacker Steve Busick (knee) and defensive end Keith Baldwin (knee) will be activated Sunday. Since both are on injured reserve, two players would need to be cut or placed on that same list.
